


This is Halloween

by Doctor_Discord



Series: The Ego Manor [122]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Child Murder, Corruption, Fem!Dark, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Dark, Horror, Implied Cannibalism, Imprisonment, Magic, Murder, Rotting, Story within a Story, Survival Horror, The Egos are Little Shits, The Host is a Bastard, gonna tag it anyway, i think, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-04 18:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21201974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctor_Discord/pseuds/Doctor_Discord
Summary: The Host tells a horror story for Halloween.





	This is Halloween

The egos were all lounging about the living area (well, most of them – Dark and Wilford were off preparing the manor for the Halloween decoration competition with the Septics). Google was beaming happily on one of the loveseats, fiddling with his new stun gun baton and eyes literally lighting up whenever the veins of electricity sparked between the tonged end. Bing was steadily blushing harder beside him every time the electricity went off, and Google was _obviously _aware of it going by his smirk.

Bim stuck his tongue out at them, tucked into one end of the couch with King’s head in his lap, the other curled up completely to make room for Silver also on the couch. “_Ew_, you two are gross. _Stop it_.”

Google raised an eyebrow, and Bing looked about ready to combust. Google’s eyes flashed, and he opened his mouth, but then both Jims were jolting in place on the floor, letting out twin harsh gasps and speaking in unison. “Host! You should tell a story for Halloween!”

The Host jolted in place himself with a surprised noise, nearly falling off the other loveseat had Dr. Iplier not caught him. “…Okay. What kind of story would the egos like to hear?”

Ed perked up, switching to sit _normally _in his armchair and leaning forward a bit with his arms crossed. “A _horror _story. _Duh_.” The Jims giggled in agreement, clapping their hands.

Eric shifted from his spot on the floor, petting Midnight slowly and frowning. “Um…n-not _too _scary though. _Please._”

The Jims scowled, wheeling on him. “_Booooo!_” Reynolds quickly adopted their expression, and he leaned forward in the other armchair to smack them both on the back of their heads. “_Ow!_”

The Host chuckled, shifting into a more upright position and withdrawing his arm from around Dr. Iplier’s shoulders. “Well, if horror is what the egos desire, then allow the Host to create some atmosphere.” A few muttered words later, and the room was plunged into sudden darkness, the curtains drawn, and the egos unable to see their hands in front of their faces. It was the middle of the afternoon, but suddenly it looked like the blackest night, and a few of them audibly gasped. Even the lights of the androids were extinguished. The Host’s disembodied chuckle came again, followed by more whispered mutterings, and then a single glow was appearing in the darkness, lighting up the Host’s face in the same manner as if he was holding a flashlight under his chin and painting a _horrifying _light to his grin. His blond streak appeared to glow in the darkness. King squeaked, shifting closer to Bim in his lap, and the Host raised an eyebrow. “Better?”

Reynolds’ voice came out of the darkness. “You know, I’m starting to think Bim has a point with the whole ‘King of Aesthetic’ thing.”

The Host pouted, ruining the effect of his ‘atmosphere’ a bit. “Do the egos want to hear a story or not?”

“Of course we do, get on with it!” There was a sound like skin hitting cloth, and judging by the Host’s yelp, it was safe to say that Dr. Iplier smacked his shoulder.

“Fine, fine.” The Host cleared his throat, and began.

_Once, there was a boy, named Xavier. He – _

“Nope, nope nope nope, change the name.” Bim stuck out his tongue – not that anyone could see – and the Host scowled in annoyance. “I – _sort of_ – knew a Xavier. And if you keep using that name I’m just gonna keep imagining a really hot, buff, blond dude instead of a kid.”

The Host snorted. “Alright fine. How about…Dean?”

“Yeah that’s good.”

The Host exuded a powerful air of rolling his eyes that made Silver snort, and then he was speaking again.

_Once, there was a boy, named _Dean_. He lived in a lovely little house in the woods with his mother, his father, and his older sister. Woods surrounded every side of his home, and the only proof that civilization existed outside of their isolated little paradise was the dirt road that led away from the end of his driveway. He grew up in these woods. They were more home than home. He loved them. They were perfect._

_Now, the boy’s father worked in town, and every night when he came home he’d chop firewood for the family. Dean would fall asleep every night to the sound of the crunch of wood and the sound of his father’s old, rusty axe slicing through the air. Over the years, it became a comforting sound. Like a heartbeat, following him to his dreams some nights._

“Oh I already don’t like this.” Reynolds’ words were met with several egos shushing him loudly and someone smacking him.

“_Shut the fuck up, Reynolds! Let him tell the Goddamn story!_”

“_Fuck you, Ed!_”

“_Both _of you _shut it!_”

Dr. Iplier’s words ended the ‘argument’, and the Host continued with an arched eyebrow.

_When Dean was about twelve years old, however, his father began acting strangely. His father was a kindhearted man, a sweetheart, the type to pull over to help someone in the side of the road. But lately, his father was irritable. He shook his head a lot, scratching around his ears until he bled and snapping at anyone who commented. He complained of a buzzing in his head, one that wouldn’t let him sleep, and the bags that just grew heavier and heavier under his eyes were testament to that._

_The family was worried. So the mother drew her daughter and her son into another room to hatch a plan. The mother would go out into town with the father under the guise of running some errands, but instead would take him to the hospital. And the next day, that’s exactly what she did. Except, she never made it to the hospital. The father caught on, and grabbed her arm and caused her to jerk the wheel, and he almost made her crash the car. He wouldn’t let go until she promised to take him back home, and, fearing for her life, she caved quickly. _

King gasped, shrinking closer to Bim. Dead silence met him, and he squeaked. “_What!_ I don’t like this! It’s _creepy!_”

“That _is_ the point, King,” Google deadpanned.

King’s muffled voice implied he’d shrunk into his cape. “Shut up.”

The Host just pointedly cleared his throat.

_After the incident, the father’s behavior changed _drastically_. He refused to allow anyone other than himself to leave the house. He pulled the children out of school, and he forced the mother to quit her job. Dean was no longer allowed to explore the forest he’d grown to love. He wasn’t even allowed to wander the house. They were locked in their rooms, day and night, and the only contact they had with another living being was when the father came to deliver meals each day. Each time they saw him, the father was worse. His eyes were bloodshot, his face gaunt and pale, the bags under his eyes darker. Scratched wounds completely decorated the side of his head, and something black dripped from his ears, oozing slowly along his jaw._

Someone in the room gagged, and the Host grinned.

_The only comfort Dean had left was the sound of his father chopping wood every night. But, even that began to change. Instead of the consistent, satisfying chop of the axe biting through wood, sometimes the sound changed. To something softer. Like the axe was biting through something _else_._

_Chop._

_Thump._

_Chop._

_Squish._

_Chop._

Crack_._

The Host’s voice _dropped _on the last word, vibrating through the room and sending _chills _racing down everyone’s spine as he grinned. Everyone shuddered again when he let out a dark chuckled, and he opened his mouth to continue, but then a distinctly _slurred _voice was joining them. “_Bloody _Hell, why is it so dark in here?!”

“The Host is telling a story for Halloween,” Silver replied.

The Host tilted his head, smiling warmly and shifting _drastically _from mere seconds ago. “The Host has already started, but Wilford and Darkiplier are welcome to join them.”

“_Hell _yeah, I’ll get in on this! Come on, Dark!”

“Wait – Wil – Hold on, none of us can see!”

The Host raised a surprised eyebrow when a female voice came out of Dark, but he didn’t comment, nor did anyone else. Though, someone yelped from the floor – probably Eric, if the following squeal from Midnight was anything to go by – and Dark swore. “Sorry – sorry! Host, why the _fuck _is it so _dark?!_”

The Host smiled again, mildly sheepish. “Atmosphere.”

Wilford snorted from wherever the eldest couple had settled on the floor, and he hummed. “Well, get on with it! I want to hear too!”

The Host’s _terrifying _grin returned, shadows dancing along his features. His voice dropped back into a low, haunting purr, and someone (_ahem_ Dr. Iplier) made a small noise. “_Of course_.”

_One day, several weeks deep into the father’s strange, terrifying behavior, someone in the house broke. The father was getting worse, staggering when he walked, his wounds festering, and his skin stained black from the substance that secreted from his ears and began to drip from his eyes as well. And the sister was tired of being treated like a prisoner in her own home. They fought. The sister screamed. The father’s raspy, hoarse voice was barely heard over her. He could hear his mother screaming as well, as Dean curled up in a ball on the bed. There was a thump, the screams of his sister stopped, and there was the distinct sound of something being dragged past his door._

_That night, as the father chopped his firewood, Dean could’ve sworn he heard muffled moans of pain._

A collective shudder went through the group, and no one could tell if it was just _shadows _dancing across the Host’s bandages or if blood was beginning to seep through. Someone _not_ the Host suddenly cleared their throat, and then Dr. Iplier was speaking, his voice cracking. “You are _far _too good at being creepy.”

The Host let out a huff of laughter, turning his head to presumably face his doctor. He smiled, though his expression was oddly tight and _definitely _annoyed. “While the Host appreciates the compliment, if anyone else _interrupts again_ the Host will leave. Now _hush_.”

_Dean never heard another word from his sister. He could hear his mother sob in her own room though, and whenever his father came by he begged and pleaded for him to _stop_, for him to let them go. But the father was unresponsive, clumsily setting whatever food down in front of Dean before shuffling out the door and locking it. His father’s state was worse every time the door opened. And consequently, so were the ‘meals’ he brought. The black that dripped of his face in rivers was swirled on the plate, the meat barely cooked. Dean didn’t know what he was being fed, but the toe he once found with its nail painted the shade of green his sister loved so much made him loathe to eat it. _

Bim audibly gasped, then clapped his hands. “_Ooh_, this is shit I can _get_ behind!”

The Host raised an eyebrow, entire unamused at his comment, and stood, stalking toward the entrance to the living area. There was the soft sound of a mechanical whir, and then Bing was speaking. “Hold on dude, where are you going?!”

The Host paused, looking over his shoulder, his eyebrow still raised. “Since the egos have decided they’d rather make comments more than sitting and _listening_, the Host has decided to better his time by getting ready for the Halloween party later this evening.” He turned back around and took a single step forward, but suddenly stopped again. The expression on his face implied he was struggling against something.

“Don’t you _fucking _dare,” Dark hissed. The Host sighed, spinning back around.

“Will the egos _shut up?_”

“_Yep!_” The Jims’ chorused, mildly panicked reply made the Host smile _just _a bit, and he moved back to the loveseat, sitting back next to Dr. Iplier. His _chilling_ grin returned, and he leaned forward slightly.

_Months passed. Dean had lost all track of time. He missed his sister, he missed his mother, and he missed the man his father used to be. The ringing his father had complained about in the early days had begun to echo in his own ears. And when he looked in the mirror, his reflection was of a pale, starved boy with sunken features, hair plastered to his head with grease and sweat, and black dripping from his nose and ears._

Someone gasped, and the Host snarled, hissing his words sharply. “_Shut the fuck up!_” There was an accompanying squeak and a distressed, muffled shriek, but the Host just smiled with _far _too much teeth and adjusted his bandages. It was _definitely _blood trailing down his face, rolling down his chin and impacting with soft drips onto his clothes. “Right. Continuing on.”

_It was one, single mistake that shifted everything. Dean had become accustomed to hearing the lock click in place every time his father closed the door after delivering a meal. It made his stomach drop every time, no matter how long he’d been confined to his room, staring longingly out the window at the forest he loved so much. But, one night, it never came. And Dean, hesitant and cautious, slipped off his bed, past the plate of nearly raw flesh and black substance, and turned the door knob._

_It was unlocked._

_Swallowing harshly, Dean moved quietly out the door, hesitating by the front door before hurrying to his mother’s room. He opened the door, and had to muffle and gasp and a gag. His mother was _long _dead, the smell wafting out the second the door opened nearly unbearable. She lay on her bed, in almost the same state as his father, tear tracks carving through the black stains. And on the floor, half-pieced together, was the rotting corpse of his sister, formed with only the bits and pieces his mother got served. _

The temperature in the room dropped, and there was the sound of subtle shifting on the floor as ice trickled down every egos’ spine. The Host tilted his head, smile widening to almost feral territory, and the elder egos got _distinct _flashbacks of that _exact _same grin plastered onto the face of a man with golden eyes.

_Tears running down his face, Dean raced away from his mother’s room, leaving the door wide open and slamming the front door closed as he bolted into the trees. His muscles protested the movement after months of wasting away and the malnutrition that clung to his body, but Dean didn’t quite care. The stench of death gripped on tight to his skin, his hair, his clothes, and he _ran_ deeper and deeper into the forest in a vain attempt to get away from it. _

_At last, he skidded to a halt, panting and breathing hard and his legs quivering from the exertion. He collapsed to his knees on the grass, propping himself up on his hands and shaking forearms. He knew exactly where he was, years of exploration giving him an almost perfect mental map of the trees. He knew if he gathered the strength to lift his head, he’d see a well off to one side, and the broken, rundown, decaying remains of an old cottage reclaimed by nature. It was his favorite place, _beautiful _in the summer._

_Getting unsteadily back to his feet with the overwhelming urge to vomit suddenly rising in his chest, Dean stumbled over to the well, closing his eyes. He gagged violently at the _stench _rising from the well, and his eyes snapped open. He gasped with horror, inhaling more of the vile scent and gagging once more. Staring up at him were _bodies_, dozens of them, stacked so high they nearly overflowed the old well. And worst of all, locking eyes with him at the top of the pile, was the rotting, decaying head of his sister._

Someone made an odd choking noise, sounding like they were suppressing a gag themselves, and the Host smirked, blood still streaming steadily down his chin.

_Dean scrambled back from the well on all fours, standing up and making to bolt once more, but he ran into something. Something that wasn’t there before. He fell to the ground, and when he glanced up he _froze_. His father stood above him, staring down at him with a blank expression, the axe held loosely in one hand. His eyes looked like they had begun to rot, black at the bottom where the never-ending stream of black liquid flowed forth. His mouth wasn’t closed all the way, his jaw hanging open a bit, and Dean swallowed harshly when he saw a spider crawl out and into his father’s hair. He didn’t even have a chance to run before the butt of the axe was cracking against his skull._

A muffled squeak sounded in the room, and the Host flashed a broad grin before continuing, blood beginning to paint his teeth red. He leaned forward, tilting his head.

_When Dean next opened his eyes, he couldn’t move, thick ropes wrapped around his body and clumsily yet sturdily tied. He couldn’t speak, something wadded in his mouth. He glanced blearily around, dread sinking in his stomach when he spotted the house he once called home to his left. He shifted uncomfortably, propped up in an odd position and his head resting on something _hard_, adding to his headache._

_It was when he spotted his own bedroom window above him that he recognized where he lay._

_Dean _shrieked _into his gag, struggling to get his head and throat off the old stump his father used to chop wood, but it was no use; he was thoroughly pinned. Breathing hard, he began to cry, hot tears sliding down his face as sheer _panic _and _fear _gripped him from all sides. He could see the sky darkening, the sun setting, and he knew from years of listening that his father would be there soon. He tried in vain to break free, to _escape_, but, of course, to no avail. He was trapped. Truly, thoroughly, _trapped_._

_He squeezed his eyes shut, broken, muffled sobs escaping him, when he heard the sound of approaching shuffled footsteps. The sounds escaping him hurt his chest with the force of them, and he opened his eyes to stare pleadingly up at his father. His father didn’t even blink, _nothing _about his expression even _twitched _as he lifted the axe. Dean began to struggle once more, crying out desperately as the axe glinted in the embers of the dying sun._

_The last thing Dean ever saw was the axe swinging down._

Dead silence met the Host’s words, hanging heavy in the air, and the Host leaned back, a smug, satisfied little smile on his face. “The End.”

“What the _Hell_, Host!” The Host raised an eyebrow, head swiveling to presumably face wherever Reynolds was sitting. “You can’t end a story like that, you killed a kid!”

The Host’s eyebrow arched further. “The Host _can_, and he did. Deal. It was a horror story, was it not?”

“_I’m _gonna have nightmares!”

The Host snorted at the Jim’s comment, then muttered a little under his breath. Light abruptly returned to the room, and nearly every ego hissed in protest. The Host didn’t even attempt to hide his laughter, pointedly adjusting his bandages in a mildly mocking manner and picking at the blood drying on his face in gruesome tears. Dr. Iplier smacked him, one hand rubbing at his eyes. “_Prick! _Blind bastard.”

The Host covered his mouth with a hand, giggling incessantly. There was a muffled shriek, and all heads turned toward the floor. CJ looked close to tears as he tugged at the zipper zipping his lips shut, complete with a padlock that looked like it went straight through his cheek. It clearly didn’t hurt judging by his tugging, and there wasn’t any blood. It was like something out of a cartoon, but a bit more…_disturbing _when it wasn’t animated. The Host winced. “Right. Sorry.”

He mumbled something else, and both the lock and the zipper fell away, and CJ gasped, nails digging a bit into his cheeks. “What the _fuck_, Host?!”

The Host simply shrugged, offering a sheepish, apologetic smile. “The Host _did _warn the egos to stop making noise.”

CJ just let out a distressed whine, covering his face with his hands and falling back onto the carpet. Midnight hopped from Eric’s lap, sniffing at his cheek, and CJ sneezed. “_Aahg!_ You suck, Host!”

The Host simply snorted, then stood, hands shoved in his pockets. “The Host is going to go get into costume. He suggests the other egos do the same. They only have a few hours until the party.”

Bing raised an eyebrow. “Dude, it’s only like, 2:30pm. We don’t have to be at the Septics’ place until 10:00pm.”

The Host tilted his head in the androids’ direction. “And the Host knows for a fact that the androids will need most if not _all _of that time to get ready.” He grinned. “_Especially_ if Bing desires to give Google his birthday present before the egos leave.”

Bing blushed heavily, and Google gave him an odd look. “Shut up, man!”

The Host chuckled, and continued on his way. Dr. Iplier stood and chased after him, very clearly heard chastising the Host for a good long while. Dark picked herself up off the floor from her spot neatly folded in Wilford’s lap, brushing off her suit before planting her hands on her hips. “He’s right. Come on.” She grinned, mildly terrifying as her eyes flashed their respective colors. “Let’s show up some Septic bastards at a costume party.”

**Author's Note:**

> My son is indeed a blind bastard and I love him  
I haven't written a proper horror story in so long, I hope you guys liked this! _I worked Hella hard on it, my God_  
Anyway, Sunday's story is being pushed to Monday for yet _another_ birthday! And unless you've been around a while, you are legit _never_ gonna guess who.  
See you then!
> 
> Tumblr: doctordiscord123.tumblr.com


End file.
